


Truths Unwhispered

by Zaniida



Series: Exploring Complicated Emotions [3]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: English is inadequate when it comes to discussing love, I'm too tired to work out good tags so please let me know if you notice something I should tag, Introspection, Multi, Possibly Ableist Thoughts, elbows-friendly, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 17:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17922800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida
Summary: Root's been contemplating her feelings toward the people she works with, and… it's complicated.





	Truths Unwhispered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Murus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murus/gifts), [satanicnightjar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/satanicnightjar/gifts).



> A highly belated Christmas present for **Murus** … and as I was working on it, I realized that it seems to be right up satanicnightjar's alley, so why not? Merry Christmas to you both.
> 
> So… it kinda feels like this disclaimer shouldn't be needed, but there are at least some corners of this fandom where people feel that giving Root any sort of relationship _other than_ Shaw/Root is somehow being homophobic.
> 
> I would like to go on record asserting that that position is _itself_ homophobic (Bisexual Erasure). Root might well be sexually attracted to more than one person and to more than one gender; she might not even be monogamous (this fandom has a number of happy threesomes floating around).
> 
> So do consider the following points:
> 
>   * Bisexuality/Pansexuality is a thing: Being attracted to one person doesn't preclude being attracted to others.
>   * Polyamory is a thing, as is [compersion](http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=192): Being in a relationship with one person doesn't preclude being in, or wanting, a relationship with someone else.
>   * Unrequited Love is a thing (and attraction is, largely, out of our control): Yearning for a given relationship is no guarantee that the object of your affections is interested, nor does it entitle you to such a relationship.
>   * Not speaking up is a thing: There are a number of reasons you might choose not to be open about who you're attracted to.
>   * Asexuality is a thing: Not every relationship needs to be understood in terms of sexuality. And, y'know, humanity enjoys a wide variety of relationships that have no sexual dimension whatsoever.
> 

> 
> With me so far? Okay. Now let's consider one possible Root, and her possible feelings, complicated as they might be…

It was odd, being in love. Her brain, which (she had to admit) was a little odd at the best of times, didn’t know what to do with the idea. The mental model was, frankly, beyond her; she hadn’t grown up in a particularly loving environment, and she wasn’t convinced that she would have picked up on it even if she had. Foreign concept… until she happened across a man who sometimes called himself Harold Finch.

Before they’d even been in the same room, she’d become infatuated with him. Kidnapping him at gunpoint hadn’t been the most reasonable opening move, but they’d gotten past that. As his captor, she’d terrorized him for _days_ , to the point where he’d begged (no, demanded—no, _requested_ , and how odd was that?) that she kill him, so that he wouldn’t have to listen to her crazy anymore.

And yet, when the tables were turned, he’d treated her with an astounding mercy that she could never have deserved.

He’d rescued her from the government, and stayed the deservedly murderous intentions of his own teammate—saving her life just moments after she’d gotten _so close_ to putting a bullet through that irreplaceable brain. And after she’d used every nonphysical torment she knew of to crack him open, to get at the secrets that he valued more than his own life, he had, in return, pulled together every resource he could in an attempt to undo what he evidently took to be psychological trauma.

That was the sort of man he was, discounting his own welfare and giving up everything he had to save the lives of strangers, and even enemies. Even the secrets he kept were, largely, in service to the greater good. And she’d sussed out that vulnerability and turned it against him, controlling him by threatening random strangers and then, later, the woman he loved. (For the strangers, he’d sacrificed his own safety and comfort; only for Grace had he been willing to sacrifice his secrets.)

Once they’d moved her to the cage in the library, Harry had ignored pragmatism and given her unsupervised access to a bathroom—unwilling to visit upon her the same indignity that he’d been forced to bear while in her hands. And where, in her care, he’d gone for days without a proper meal, she, in _his_ care, had been provided with nutritionally balanced and physically appealing dishes, thrice daily, as if by providing for her welfare he were somehow undoing the harm that she had done to him.

Sometimes, as he handed her food, her eyes would graze across the scar on his palm, where she’d sliced a razor through his flesh. The mark had still been angry, and made him flinch when the skin pulled tight. And that was merely the most visible evidence of what she’d put him through. Small wonder he still stiffened up when she got too close, and it took an act of will on his part to go so far as to pat her on the shoulder. There was still a tension between them, one that hadn’t abated after two years of being on the same team.

Because they’d become allies, of course; that had been inevitable: Two extraordinary people whose fates intertwined with one era-redefining invention. Even the humblest appraisal would have to admit that Harry’s skills were unprecedented, and her own… well, when her brain was working right and her logic wasn’t being overpowered by her own emotions, she was one of the most valuable assets that he could ever have. Even before her appointment as the Machine’s Analog Interface.

All his care for her, it could have been as simple as that: protecting an asset. One more way to defend his creation. But she’d come to understand that Harry couldn’t see her that way. Not even _her_. He’d designed the Machine to defend humanity, and the Machine had taken that task so seriously that she had even taken on Root as a side project, slowly unraveling the tangles of her myopic worldview, bringing her out into the light. With both painstaking gentleness and unflinching honesty, the Machine had been opening her up to the possibility that humans were—that _individuals_ were—worth saving. That even _she_ , kidnapper and murderess, defective neurostructure and all, was worth saving.

Both Harry and the Machine valued her. As incomprehensible as it seemed, they valued her safety and her welfare, were distressed when she put herself at unnecessary risk. So of course she felt indebted to them… but it was more than that.

Because Harry cared for random strangers enough to risk his life each day, but his feelings for her didn’t seem to stop there. This man, who held the kind of secrets that he didn’t—couldn’t—trust anyone with, who barely allowed himself any friends at all… he saw her as a friend, albeit one he couldn’t always trust. He truly cared for her; that was the part that beggared belief.

And her own feelings… they somehow went beyond that, and she was still trying to work her way through them, as best as she could.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how many chapters this is going to have; I had meant for it to be a one-shot, but it's complicated enough that I figured it makes sense to split it. No idea if I'll get back to it in a timely manner or not (knowing me, it's unlikely). But I do have a fair amount written for the next chapter(s); I was just having way too much trouble making the dang thing sort itself into a reasonable order.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  **News:** Anyone who's followed me long enough is well aware that I am scatterbrained and find it difficult to do things in a timely manner without getting sidetracked. However, my intentions regarding my writing haven't changed: I still intend to complete all these fics (with the exception of _Manipulations_ , but I was honest about that from the start), it's just gonna take a while. I haven't even managed to put together the time and focus to update the notes on _Unseen Things_ , which I really should update (they still make it sound like that fic'll be done in 2018).
> 
> At any rate, the pieces I'm still working on, in the short term, include a small handful of belated Christmas gifts (one down! sorta! yay!), _Unseen Things_ , _Everybody Wants Finch_ , _Mirror_ , _Buying Time_ , and _Nippitaty_. Also some podfics that I've recorded but haven't yet taken the time to splice, so no idea how soon they'll be up and running.
> 
> I have a website now! It's nowhere near ready to release to the public. It's part of why my writing isn't done yet (sigh), and I'm reacquainting myself with HTML and CSS. But eventually it might be a good front end for my various projects, giving a little better structure to find things (which'll still be posted on the sites they're currently posted on: fics on AO3, videos on YT, art on DA, etc.) and allowing me to host a couple things that I don't otherwise have the ability to host yet. (I've got my eye on a short text game for POI, possibly more than one, but that's not gonna happen soon.)
> 
> So… anyway, yeah, I'm still trying to work on my writing, it's just not coming together as quickly as I would like. Ah, for the days when I could post things once a week! Sigh. (Well, at least our plumbing crisis is over! Dang snow. I love you, snow—come back! just don't mess up our water pipes again.)


End file.
